


I'll Have What He's Having

by JangJaeYul



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Meetings, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-26 13:15:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12558164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JangJaeYul/pseuds/JangJaeYul
Summary: The kid is sitting in the far corner of the cafe, eyes fixed on his phone across his drink. His lips are on the straw, but he’s not drinking, just frowning at his phone. He looks confused, a little bit frustrated, and goddamn adorable.Well. Shit. It’s only Monday morning and already Tao’s found his crush of the week.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My lovely friend Sacha has very difficult assignments to write. She's going to get a chapter of this fic as a reward every time she needs an incentive to finish one.

The kid is sitting in the far corner of the cafe, eyes fixed on his phone across his drink. His lips are on the straw, but he’s not drinking, just frowning at his phone. He looks confused, a little bit frustrated, and _goddamn adorable_.

Well. Shit. It’s only Monday morning and already Tao’s found his crush of the week.

He eyes the kid all the way up the queue, until the cashier has to call a third hello in his direction to get his attention. Tao orders his peppermint mocha and retreats to the pickup counter to wait, still eyeing the kid. From this angle he has a better view of his profile, and he observes the slope of the kid’s nose, the pout of his lips, the curve of his jaw. There are no angles to his features - everything about him is gently rounded.

Watching him tap away at his phone, Tao amends his assessment: the kid isn’t just adorable, he’s positively beautiful.

His drink materialises on the counter next to him, and Tao murmurs a thank you to the barista. He glances back at the kid, then checks his watch and sighs. He needs to get to class.

He sends a silent whisper of thanks to the kid for gracing his morning. He’ll be thinking about that face all week - or at least until he spots someone else cute on campus.

-

By the end of his last class Tao is absolutely wiped out. His brain is six different kinds of scrambled, and he still has an essay and three hours of exam study to do.

He needs more coffee.

He’s halfway up the queue when he glances across the room and does a double-take. Not even three hours of Database Management could erase that face from his memory.

The kid is still sitting at the same table, still with his phone in his hand, still frowning at whatever’s on it. The only difference is that now he has two empty coffee cups beside the one he’s currently got a straw in.

What has the kid been doing on his phone that’s kept him glued to his seat all day? If it weren’t for the empty cups on the table Tao would almost believe he hadn’t even moved for the last eight hours. He looks more frustrated than he did this morning, and somehow even cuter for it.

Tao reaches the front of the queue, and the cashier asks him what he’d like.

“Whatever he’s having.”

The cashier follows his gaze, surprised when he indicates the kid.

“He’s had three of them today,” Tao reasons. “It must be good.”

The cashier shrugs and keys in his order. Tao pays - whatever the kid’s drink is, it’s a damn sight cheaper than a peppermint mocha - and steps over to the pickup counter to wait. The whole time, the kid keeps tapping away at his phone, the crease between his brows deepening as Tao watches.

“Here you are,” the barista says.

“Thanks.” Tao doesn’t even look at her, just takes the drink and turns to the kid. He’s glaring at his phone now, his lips pressed into a thin line, the straw chewed flat between his teeth. He looks pissed as hell, but there’s still something magnetic about him - as Tao realises when he finds himself somehow across the room, pulling out the empty chair and sitting down opposite the kid.

“Hey.”

The kid glances up from his phone. There’s an air of incredulity to his frustration now as he runs an eye over Tao’s face and goes back to his phone. “Hey.”

It’s not much of a conversation starter, but Tao’s worked tougher audiences than this.

“Are you in first year?”

A smirk flickers into the corner of the kid’s mouth. “Uh, yeah.”

At least he’s gotten a smile out of him now. _Foot in the door_ , Tao thinks.

“You’ve been sitting here all day?”

“Yyyyep.”

He’s still focused on his phone, which Tao thinks is a little rude now that they’ve established that the kid is a first year and Tao is clearly not. He would have expected the kid to show a little more courtesy to his elders. Perhaps he’s just shy.

“You’ve been on your phone the whole time?”

“Mhm.”

“Drama in the group chat?”

The kid raises his eyebrows. “No.”

“What are you doing then?”

“Working.”

“Oh.”

There’s a moment of silence then, while the kid taps furiously at his phone and Tao searches for something else to say. After a minute the kid takes a sip from his chewed-up straw.

“What are you drinking?” Tao asks.

“Iced americano,” the kid mutters.

“Oh, me too!” Tao holds up his own cup, then brings the straw to his lips and takes a sip.

_Oh, what the-_

“Eugh!” Tao shudders and recoils, just barely resisting the urge to spit out his mouthful of poison. “What _is_ this?”

The kid bursts into laughter. He drops his phone on the table and leans forward, his shoulders shaking as he presses a hand over his eyes.

“What the fuck?” Tao glares at the cup. “How can you _drink_ this awful stuff?”

“Very easily!” the kid hiccups, picking up his own half-empty cup. “Serves you right for letting a stranger choose your drink for you.” He’s still laughing as he toasts Tao with his cup and takes a long drag from the straw.

Tao glowers at the coffee. “This is disgusting.”

The kid shrugs. “I like it.” He sets his cup down and wipes the tears from his eyes with a giggle. “What’s your name?”

“Tao - Zitao.”

“Nice to meet you, Tao-Zitao. I’m Kim Minseok.”

“It’s a pleasure. I wish I could say the same for the coffee.”

Minseok grins and takes another gulp from his cup. Tao can’t believe he’s managed to drink even one of those, let alone three.

“What do you study, Tao?”

“Software Engineering. Third year.” Tao slides his Programming textbook partway out of his bag, and Minseok nods.

“Fun stuff.”

“Yeah, it’s alright. What about you?”

“Music,” Minseok says.

“Oh, cool. Is that what you’ve been working on today?”

“Yep.”

“Is it hard?”

Minseok shakes his head. “Not particularly.”

“Then what were you so annoyed about earlier?”

“Some idiot in the queue who wouldn’t stop staring at me.”

Tao opens his mouth to ask who that was, then snaps it closed again, his face flaming at the sight of Minseok’s grin.

“My bad,” he mutters.

Minseok just laughs at him.

“Anyway,” he says, “I gotta get going to my tutorial in about ten minutes, but I just want to finish this first.” He picks up his phone and unlocks it again, and Tao gets a glimpse of the screen. It’s a page of music, only half the staves filled, and as Tao watches Minseok taps a note from the bottom of the screen and sets it on the page - the tune is his own creation, Tao realises, then with a further shock notices that there are no headphones plugged in; Minseok is composing entirely in his head.

“Woah,” he breathes. “What kind of shit do they get you _doing_ in first year music?”

Minseok smirks at his phone. “You’d be surprised.”

“Minseok!”

The shout comes from the front of the cafe, and Minseok’s head jerks towards the sound. Tao follows his gaze and sees a man he recognises from last year’s prizegiving as one of the music department’s esteemed graduate scholars, briefcase under his arm, nodding towards the door.

“Junmyeon!” Minseok shoves his phone into his pocket and jumps up. “I’m just coming! You get a headstart, I’ll catch you up.”

“ _Junmyeon?_ ” Tao stares at him incredulously as he slings his bag over his shoulder. “What are you doing calling your senior by his first name?”

Minseok snorts. “Junmyeon ain’t my senior.”

Tao scrambles to follow him as he saunters over to the recycling to dump his empty cups. “What do you mean? I thought you were a first year?”

“Uh, yeah.” Minseok turns and smirks at him. “First year _of my PhD_.”

Tao’s jaw drops. “ _What?_ How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

Tao would have bet his left shoe that Minseok was at least ten years younger than that.

“Anyway,” Minseok says, “I’d love to stay and chat, but I have a tutorial to teach. Third years. They’re a good bunch of kids.” He grins up at Tao, glittering with wicked amusement. “I’ll see you around, Tao-Zitao. Enjoy your coffee!”

He skips away, leaving Tao standing there staring after him. In the doorway, Minseok pauses and turns, catches Tao’s eye, and blows him a kiss. Then he’s gone with a laugh, absorbed into the bustle of students outside. Tao blinks at the doorway for a moment, then takes a sip of his coffee.

“Oh, _gross_.” He pulls a face at the cup and drops it into the bin. “I don’t understand how anyone can drink you.”

As he heads for the library, he wonders what Minseok thinks of peppermint mochas.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sacha just had her last exam of the school year yesterday, and I told her she would have something to look forward to afterwards. Here it is.

It’s been five hours, and still his answer refuses to match the one in the back of the textbook. Tao groans and drops his head into his hands, the heels of his palms pressed to his eyes to try and push his brain back into place. Two more hours. Just two more hours, and then he can go home.

“What’s this?”

Tao jolts upright, eyes blinking out of his hands in a sparkle of colours. There’s a coffee cup dangling in front of his face, and when he follows the hand holding it up the arm to its owner he sees Minseok grinning down at him.

“Oh! Hi. Hello. How’s it going?”

“It’s going,” Minseok says, which could mean anything, and nods at Tao’s textbook. “Statistics?”

“Calculus,” Tao sighs.

Minseok pulls a face and waggles the cup at him again. “Come on, I’m not gonna hold it all day.”

“You…” Tao frowns, blinks at the cup, and carefully takes it from Minseok. “You bought me coffee?”

“No,” Minseok says, “I bought _myself_ coffee, and they made it wrong, so I got an extra.” He holds up the cup in his other hand, which is clearly much emptier than the one Tao now holds clasped under his nose.

“Mmm.” Tao takes a delighted sniff at the steam curling up through the hole. “My gain. What is it?”

“God knows,” Minseok says, dropping his bag off his shoulder and slouching down into the armchair opposite Tao. “But when I was like ‘is this the soy cappuccino?’ she was just like, ‘Oh. No. I’ll make it again.’ So I have no clue, but I figure I’d better not take the risk.”

Tao sniffs the steam again, then takes a careful sip.

“It’s-” he frowns, licks the foam off his lip, takes another mouthful. “It tastes like… coconut? It’s kinda good, actually.” _Could do with some peppermint, though._

Minseok sticks his tongue out between his teeth, his nose wrinkled up in disgust. “Oh god, coconut milk. You’re welcome to it.”

“You don’t like it?”

“Coconuts were put on this earth to disappoint us. Chocolate, cereal, cookies - you think you’ve found something good and then bam, you get a mouthful of that shit. No thank you.”

“I like it,” Tao decides, with a big enough gulp to just singe the edge of his throat on the way down.

Minseok makes that face again, tongue between his teeth and top lip pulled up by the scrunch of his nose.

“You like soy?” Tao ventures into the silence that falls as Minseok swirls his cup around and takes a sip.

“Sometimes,” Minseok says. “Sometimes it tastes like cardboard. It’s always a gamble.”

“Why do you drink it, then?”

Minseok raises an eyebrow. “Take a wild guess.”

“Um.” Tao shrugs. “Dairy allergy?”

“Close enough,” Minseok toasts him with his cup. “Lactose intolerant.”

“Ooh, right. Is that why you drink iced Americanos?”

“No,” Minseok smirks, “I drink iced Americanos because I enjoy the taste.”

“ _How?_ ” Tao shudders.

Minseok laughs, lip dragging off the edge of the cup. “I guess I just have a more sophisticated palate than you.”

Tao grimaces and shakes his head. “It tastes like cold poison.”

“I always take my poisons cold,” Minseok grins.

Tao watches him take another sip, impish and cocky around a mouthful of foam.

“You studying for exams?” he asks, when Minseok has licked the moustache off his lip.

“Nope. PhD, remember? I’m only in my first year, I’ve got more than two years before I have to defend my thesis.”

“Right, of course.” Tao shifts his calculus textbook off his knee. “So what are you doing in the library?”

“Trying to figure out what the fuck to do my thesis on.”

“Oh!” Tao can’t help a surprised laugh. “You don’t know yet? Sorry if that’s a stupid question, I don’t know how PhDs work.”

“No, it’s fine.” Minseok slides down slightly in his chair, propping one foot up on the dilapidated pouffe between them and considering the ceiling as if a thesis topic will fall from the tiles. “It’s gotta be something new, right, I can’t just rehash other people’s work and call it a thesis. But all the things I can think of to do… they’d be so meaningless to me. I want to do work that’s actually groundbreaking. I want to get at the _very core_ of what music is, I want to do something that starts a genre. I want to be Erik Satie, you know?”

“I don’t know who that is,” Tao admits.

Minseok glances at him out the corner of his eye, then begins humming a tune that Tao vaguely recognises.

“He was such an iconic influence on 20th Century minimalism,” Minseok sighs. “He wrote these weird little ditties, and they ended up shaping a movement. Piling the tears on with strings and clarinets is easy, but do you know how incredible it is to move someone’s heart in simple 3/4 on a piano?”

Tao doesn’t know.

“Anyway,” Minseok shrugs, “I want to do something like that. I just need to figure out what.”

“You gotta… I dunno, find inspiration?”

“Yeah.” Minseok smiles at the ceiling. “Maybe I need a muse.”

“Probably. Isn’t that what all the good artists have?”

“Yep.” Minseok raises his cup to his lips, then pouts and waggles it back and forth to hear the dregs flick against the sides. “The good artists also have more coffee. You wanna come with me?”

Tao casts a baleful look at his textbook. “I’m supposed to be studying.”

“How long have you been at it?” Minseok asks.

“Since nine.”

“Then you need a walk,” Minseok declares. “Come on.” He gets up, takes Tao’s stack of notes from the pouffe and hands them to him, then waits while Tao hurriedly tips everything into his bag and slings it over his shoulder.

“Where are we going?” Tao asks, as Minseok leads the way across the library to the back entrance, in the opposite direction to Tao’s usual cafe.

“Honey Heaven,” Minseok says, and holds the door open behind him so it doesn’t swing back into Tao’s face.

Tao baulks. “I can’t go in there! I’m an undergrad.” Honey Heaven is strictly for staff and postgraduate students only, and the waitstaff have been known to possess a sixth sense for Honours and Masters students trying to sneak in for a latte to go.

“I know,” Minseok says, “but there’s no reason _I_ can’t go in there, get coffee, and drink it outside with you.”

“That’s true,” Tao says. He tries to keep the sigh out of his voice, but he thinks he probably still sounds a touch wistful. What he wouldn’t do for a sniff of those fabled apricot fudge brownies.

They cross the courtyard and Minseok leaves Tao at the door of Honey Heaven, the coconut cappuccino still clutched between his hands as the tinted glass door swings shut between them. Tao takes a sip, finds the coffee is now lukewarm, and settles for clasping his hands around it to soak in any lingering warmth from the cup.

It’s a nice day to sit outside, he thinks. This is the first time he’s left the library all day, and in that time the clouds have cleared and the sun has warmed the paving, baking away any lingering trace of the weekend’s waterblasting so that Tao can almost feel the heat of it through the soles of his shoes. The reflection of sun off the brick buildings renders the thin wool of his sweater almost unnecessary. Summer is truly on its way.

Minseok pushes through the door, rolling it open with his shoulder as he juggles a paper bag between the two plastic cups in his hands.

“Here.” He holds out his hands towards Tao who, slightly bewildered, attempts to somehow take the whole jumble from him while maintaining his hold on the coconut cappuccino.

“Wh-”

“I’ll swap you,” Minseok says, and takes the cappuccino. “Let’s get rid of this crap.” He prises the lid off the cup and tips the coffee out under the low hedge that sections off the Honey Heaven patio, then drops lid and cup both into the recycling bin against the wall. That done, he takes one of the cups back from Tao, leaving him with the other cup and the paper bag.

“Uh, here-” Tao offers them, but Minseok just shakes his head and takes a sip of his iced americano.

“Those are yours.”

“Mine?” Tao takes a second look at the cup. He was expecting another americano, but on further inspection this one has milk swirling through the coffee.

“Iced caramel latte. Did I guess right?”

“I.” Tao blinks at the tendrils of espresso rising through the ice, the layer of syrupy caramel at the bottom. The milk has only just been poured into the cup. This was not an accidental purchase. “Yeah. Yeah, this is good.”

“You didn’t really think I was going to buy myself Honey coffee and taunt you with it, did you?”

Tao ducks his head and grabs the straw to stir the layers together in the cup, the paper bag still clutched in his hand. “Thank you. What’s this?”

“Lunch,” Minseok says, unhooking the sunglasses from the collar of his T-shirt and sliding them onto his face. “Sugar makes the brain work.”

Curious, Tao peers into the bag and feels his jaw drop. Holy hell. Apricot fudge brownie. A great big slice of it. This is not a drill.

“Close your mouth,” Minseok says, “you look like your brain’s just fallen out.”

“It has,” Tao admits. “Thank you so much, I’m- I’m so hungry.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Minseok raises an eyebrow and leads the way towards the far edge of the courtyard, the side where the hill begins to fall away below you and you can see clear across the city. “You didn’t look like you’d moved all day, I was worried you were gonna grow roots or something and become part of that shitty armchair.”

They drop down onto the grass at the end of the cobbled brick, where Minseok stretches out on his back like a starfish while Tao draws his gangly legs up towards his chest. For a moment they sip their coffee in silence; Honey Heaven truly does live up to its reputation, and Tao thinks peppermint mochas may have found a new rival. On that thought, he slides his phone out of his pocket and sends a text to Sehun.

_i might do a phd just for the hh coffee_

That done, he drops his phone next to his bag and rolls back to arrange himself next to Minseok, careful to avoid grass-staining his sweater.

“Finally, some sun,” Minseok mutters. “I was beginning to think the Seasonal Affective Disorder was gonna be all year round this year.”

Tao hums in agreement. “I can’t wait for beach days.”

“That’ll be nice,” Minseok sighs.

In the ensuing silence, Tao pulls the brownie out of its bag and takes a bite. “Ohmygod- mm!” He smacks a hand over his mouth a second too late as every single tastebud convulses in ecstasy.

“Are you okay there?” Minseok slides his sunglasses down his nose to squint at Tao, whose cheeks are now flaming.

“I just spat everywhere,” Tao mumbles.

Minseok laughs. “You’re not alone. First time I had a Honey Heaven panini I literally gleeked every time I opened my mouth.”

“It’s so good.”

“Mhm.” Minseok closes his eyes and leans back on his hands while Tao demolishes the brownie.

When every crumb is gone and the empty paper bag crumpled into the side pocket of Tao’s backpack, Minseok rolls onto his side and props his head up on one hand to look at him. 

“What’s your plan for the rest of the afternoon? More study?”

Tao grimaces. “Yeah. Nose back to the grindstone, I guess. Try and keep myself awake long enough to memorise at least half the shit I need for Wednesday.”

Minseok pulls a sympathetic face. “The struggle is real.” He plucks a blade of grass and starts twisting it around his finger. “You want some help studying?”

“Huh?” For a moment Tao can’t think of any more intelligent response than a clueless blink. He can’t see what Minseok’s eyes are doing, but one eyebrow raises over the sunglasses and for some reason it warms Tao’s cheeks. “Don’t you have more important things to be doing?”

Minseok shrugs. “Not really. I’m just gonna end up spending the rest of my afternoon how I spent my whole morning: sitting at the piano, getting nothing done, staring into space devoid of any imagination and wondering why the fuck I thought I could do a PhD. It’s what I’ve been doing for about a week and honestly I’m pretty sick of it. I might as well distract myself and spend that time musing instead.” He shrugs again, then sits up and stretches his arms over his head. “You ready to head back to the library?”

“Uh, yeah.” Tao scrambles to his feet and dusts off the back of his pants. “Ready when you are.”

“Sweet.” Minseok arches his back with an audible pop. “When I’m finished with you, you’re gonna have such good grades, you won’t know what hit you.”

Tao laughs and ducks his head, pulling his phone out of his pocket for something to do other than grin at Minseok. There's a text waiting for him from Sehun, and as he opens it three more buzz in. 

_wtf is hh coffee_

_wait_

_honey heaven??_

_did u sneak into honey heaven??? boi HOW_

Tao grins and darts a glance at Minseok to make sure he’s not paying attention. Minseok is polishing his sunglasses on the front of his shirt and doesn’t seem to have noticed Tao’s glee.

_no,_ he sends back as they head back into the library.

_i just made a new friend._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today Sacha had to write 60% of a lab report in the space of 20 minutes and ended up submitting it with one minute to spare. I thought it was a good time to post this.

The second the lecture theatre’s heavy wooden door has swung shut behind him, Tao’s phone is in his hand. He flicks it off silent and thumbs into his messages, back to the last active conversation where the latest incoming message still sits awaiting a reply.

_Good luck with your exam!_

Tao ducks his chin towards his chest so he’s not grinning at the whole empty lobby. He didn’t have time to reply on his mad dash from the bus stop to the lecture theatre, only glancing at the message before shoving his phone into his bag and dropping it at the front of the room, but now he taps out a response:

_i absolutely CRUSHED IT_

“Dude, right here.”

Tao glances up, his thumb hovering over the _send_ button, and sees Sehun lounging on the bottom step of the stairs leading up to the mezzanine. He grins, sends the message, and slides his phone back into his pocket.

“Hey, what’s up? How was your exam?” He takes Sehun’s extended hand and pulls him up off the stairs into a hug. “Corporate Crime, right?”

“Forensic Entomology,” Sehun corrects him with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“Is that the insect one?”

“Yup!”

“Gross.”

Sehun laughs. “It was good. They totally tried to trick us on the beetles bit, but I would know a hide beetle anywhere.”

Tao shudders and shoves Sehun’s shoulder. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be that happy about things that feed on rotting flesh.”

“I mean, the hide beetles only show up once it’s just the dried skin and bo-”

“ _I don’t want to know!_ ”

Sehun laughs again, then claps a hand over his mouth as the sound rings through the high ceilings of the lobby.

“Come on,” he says, softer, and hooks an arm through Tao’s elbow. “Let’s get coffee. How was calc?”

“Dude, I nailed it. I couldn’t believe it, I was waiting for the question that was gonna stump me and it just never happened!”

“ _Nice._ ” Sehun slaps Tao between the shoulders and drags him up to the mezzanine floor, where there’s a door through to the wide-open Atrium with its cushioned benches and abundant coffee. “Either you aced the whole thing or else you did so badly you don’t even realise how badly you did. Dunning-Kruger effect. It’s gotta be one or the other.”

“Considering how many nights I’ve spent studying rather than sleeping, I’ll be pissed if it’s not option A.” Tao fishes his phone out of his pocket as a message chimes in.

_Awesome! I knew you would._

“Mmmhm?” When Tao glances up, Sehun isn’t even trying not to smirk at him.

“What?”

“Is that all you’ve been doing rather than sleeping?” Sehun needles.

“Wh- huh?”

“Just saying,” Sehun continues, expression smug and eyebrows in the stratosphere, “you’ve been reeeally happy recently. And you’ve also been getting that look on your face while you’re texting someone who _isn’t me_.”

“What look?”

Another message slides onto his screen:

_Are you free this afternoon?_

“ _That_ look.”

“I-”

“Is it music boy?”

“Wh-”

“I bet it’s music boy.” Sehun’s grin spreads Cheshire-wide, and he nudges Tao into the line snaking out the door of their usual cafe.

“ _Music boy?_ ”

“Your PhD man,” Sehun clarifies, as if Tao is confused as to who they’re talking about rather than incredulous that Minseok has a nickname in Sehun’s head.

“He’s not my- _he’s not-_ ”

“Isn’t he? You’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”

“He’s been helping me study!”

“Is that all he’s been doing?”

“ _Yes!_ ” Tao tilts his phone away so Sehun can’t see the screen and taps out a furious message.

_yes just let me get rid of my stupid best friend first_

The reply comes in before Tao can even lock his phone again.

_LMAO okay._

“I wanna meet him,” Sehun is saying, completely oblivious to the fact that Tao’s attention is elsewhere.

“No.”

“I gotta make sure he’s good for you.”

“I’ve gone from a B to an A- in the space of a month, I’m pretty sure he’s good for me.”

“Oh, so you _are_ dating then?”

“N- stop it! Why are you like this?”

“I want you to think back on how much shit you said when I got together with Chanyeol and remember that you deserve this.”

“ _We’re not even dating though!_ ”

Sehun just laughs, head thrown back so that his cackle is siren-loud through the cafe. Several annoyed heads turn their way, and Tao tries in vain to reel Sehun in under control with a hand on his elbow.

“You’re a fucking embarrassment.” His phone chimes in his pocket, but at this point he doesn’t think he can take any more of Sehun’s teasing so he resists the urge to drag it back out.

“Sounds like you’re too easy to embarrass.” Sehun leans out of the queue to eye up the food in the cabinet. “Do I want cake? I think I want cake.”

“I want a Honey Heaven brownie,” Tao mutters.

“He’s your sugar daddy, isn’t he?”

“Sehun, I will shove my entire fist down your throat-”

“Ah, chill. Help me choose a cake. And answer your damn phone.”

Tao pulls his phone out of his pocket, unlocks it, and stops dead.

_OMG_

_OMG, Tao. That guy is your best friend?_

_TAO. BUG BOY IS YOUR BEST FRIEND?_

Tao turns around, head spinning faster than he can physically pivot to locate-

Minseok is sitting at his table in the far corner, his phone in one hand and the other pressed over his mouth to hold back a grin that Tao thinks might be actually hurting him at this point. His third iced Americano sits forgotten next to his notebook, his eyes gleeful on the back of Sehun’s head. As Tao sees him, Minseok catches his gaze and winks.

Tao looks down at his phone.

_I’m crying, this is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life._

He doesn’t know how Minseok knows Sehun, or why his name is apparently Bug Boy, but as Sehun turns to ask his opinion on the carrot cake Tao decides that having the two of them meet in this moment would almost certainly be the worst possible outcome, so he abruptly turns his back on Minseok and becomes very interested in the three sandwich options that the cafe has had as standard since the start of his degree.

When he’s confident that Sehun’s attention is completely focused on coaching the trainee barista through his complex coffee order, he slips his phone back out of his pocket and sends Minseok another text:

_as soon as i manage to ditch his ass, you’re explaining EVERYTHING._

-

“Holy shit, Tao-”

“Dude, what the _fuck-_ ”

Minseok is laughing almost too hard to breathe, clutching onto Tao’s arm by way of greeting as he leans against the sun-soaked brick and wheezes with glee. Tao glances over his shoulder to make sure the courtyard is clear of anyone he knows, then shakes Minseok a little in the hope that some form of coherency will fall out.

“Okay, okay.” Minseok takes Tao’s hand and pulls him across to the far edge of the courtyard where they can sit down with their feet on the lawn, their backs to the ears of any passers-by. “This is definitely not as funny as I’m making it out to be, but I’m low-key dying. This whole semester, Yixing and I have had this running joke - there’s been this group of kids who study in the cafe, I dunno if they’re doing biology or what, but there’s this one guy who’s always fucking going on about _bugs_ , like he’s weirdly in love with blowflies and the beetles that eat dead bodies? And Yixing and I have been making fun of this kid and his beetle obsession, Yixing literally wrote a vocal part for one of his sonatas as a joke composed entirely of shit we heard him say about Poecilochirus mites and now he can’t play it with a straight face anymore, like we have been _so obsessed_ with this Bug Boy, and now it turns out that _he’s_ your friend Sehun? I thought I was gonna piss my pants, I heard his fucking laugh and I was ready to text Yixing the latest juicy bug goss, but then I saw he was with _you_ and I was like. This is fate. This is how the universe works for me, of _course_ my favourite undergrad is friends with the weird bug man, dude, _why does he like bugs so much?_ ”

“Oh my god,” Tao groans. “It’s his class. Forensic Etymology- no. Ety- Enty- Entomology. They’re literally studying the bugs that show up when you die, it is the nastiest thing ever and I can’t believe they made a whole course out of it.”

“Oh my god, that’s even more bizarre than I expected.”

“He’s a Criminology major,” Tao explains.

“Figures. Crim students are always weird.”

“To be honest, Sehun’s just weird in general.”

“I still can’t believe you’re friends with him. Yixing’s going to lose his mind when I tell him.”

Tao glances sideways at Minseok, who is pulling his shoes off so he can dangle his bare toes over the edge of the brick and almost touch the grass with them.

“You… talk to Yixing about me?”

“Yeah?” Minseok says, like this shouldn’t be a question. “Why, do you not want me to?”

“No, no.” Tao quickly averts his eyes as Minseok looks up at him and, for lack of anything else to do, busies himself with yanking off his own shoes. “I was just wondering.” He buries his feet in the grass and wiggles them around until his toes are twined cool and green through the blades.

There’s a moment of silence, and then-

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Huh?” Tao looks up, then follows Minseok’s pointed glance down to their feet - Tao’s absentmindedly plucking grass by the toeful and Minseok’s barely even reaching the ground.

“I know I’m short, but you don’t have to be so on the nose about it.”

“Oh my god-” Tao yanks his feet back, bringing half a clump of grass up by the roots, “no, I swear, I’m not-”

“I’m playing with you.” Minseok nudges into his shoulder, sending one of Tao’s hands to the bricks for balance. “Do you want coffee? No, probably not, you just had one. I need another, though. Do you want anything?”

“A brownie?” There’s an eager note that Tao can’t quite keep out of his voice - if Minseok is standing up without putting his shoes on then that means he’s going to Honey Heaven just on the other side of the courtyard, and there are few things Tao wouldn’t do at this point for a bite of apricot fudge.

“Done.” Minseok trots off barefoot across the courtyard.

Tao flops backwards onto the cobbled bricks to feel the sun soak through his T-shirt, baking into his skin until he reaches the verge of burning. It’s almost hot enough to be at the beach, he thinks; another week or two ought to do it. Maybe after his last exam he can go to the beach to celebrate with M-

“Here.” The paper bag hitting his chest startles him up to his elbows.

“Thanks.” He takes a peek inside. Sweet apricot goodness, oh Lord. “You’re the best.”

Minseok just smiles as he sits down next to him, pressing the soles of his feet together and letting his knees fall almost flat either side. The ice rattles inside his cup as he swirls it and lifts the straw to his lips to take a long sip, eyes fixed in the far distance out across the city below them.

“How much coffee have you had today?” Tao asks. He counted three on the table at the cafe earlier, but that’s not to say they represented the sum total of Minseok's caffeine consumption for the day.

“Four,” Minseok says slowly, eyes narrowing at the horizon. “No, wait. Five? Yeah.” He takes another long sip, then pulls back and stares at the cup. “That’s probably a lot, huh?”

“Maybe a bit much.”

“Hm.” Minseok looks at the cup for another moment, then hands it to Tao. “Here you go.”

“Oh-”

“I’m heading for a crash in a couple hours anyway. No point prolonging the inevitable.”

Tao blinks between Minseok and the cup, waiting for one to tell him what to do with the other. Minseok seems to consider the conversation at its natural end, though, so after a moment Tao raises the straw to his lips and takes a cautious sip.

“Ah- ew.”

“Hm?” Minseok glances at him, then grins. “Oh yeah. Still not a fan?”

Tao shakes his head. “I kinda want to put sugar in this.”

“I don’t know how much you know about dissolving sugar in cold liquids,” Minseok says, “but it doesn’t happen.”

Tao makes a face at the cup. “Honey, then? Or something?” He grimaces at it, but when that doesn’t sweeten it he gives up and takes another sip. Coffee is coffee, after all, and this one happens to be free.

“By the time you’re doing your PhD, you’ll be so used to the taste of cold coffee that putting ice in it feels more like accepting fate.”

“Is it really that miserable?”

“Oh, it’s hell. But it’s also the greatest thing I’ve ever done, you know? There’s music in my brain, Tao, I just have to figure out how to get it out.”

Tao nods around another sip of coffee and quickly sweetens it with a bite of his brownie.

“Mm- _mmm._ ”

Minseok laughs. “The way you eat is so cute.”

Tao sticks his tongue out. Minseok just laughs again and imitates Tao’s happy little hum.

It’s when Tao is halfway through the brownie that Minseok sits bolt upright.

“Holy shit.”

“Hm?” Tao’s mouth is gummed shut with apricot fudge, so he puts his concern into the widest eyes he can.

“That’s it. That’s it- Tao!” Minseok scrambles to his feet and hauls his bag onto his shoulder. “I’ve got it, it’s up here-” He taps his forehead with the hand holding his shoes, almost dropping them but seeming unconcerned that he’s basically kicking himself in the face. “It’s all- I gotta get to a piano, it’s gonna disappear if I don’t get it down.”

He turns and takes off across the courtyard without bothering to pull his shoes on, the pigeons fleeing ahead of his bare feet. Tao watches him go with no small amount of bemusement, and is just about to turn back to the city view and his brownie when Minseok stops and turns back to yell at him.

“Hurry up! Are you coming or what?”

“Oh- _oh!_ ” Tao stumbles to his feet and tears off after him through the indignant pigeons, scattering them to the sky as he follows Minseok into the Atrium and towards the music halls beyond.


End file.
